This workout will tell you exactly how fit you are.

The workout that I call a relaxed 10K time trial is not one that I learned from anyone else. Although I’m sure other runners do it, I came up with it (or reinvented it) on my own. It’s one of my favorite workouts, so I can’t help but try to convert other runners to it, as I’m doing right now!

In format, it couldn’t be simpler. Warm up with some jogging and a few strides (20-second efforts at 90 percent of full speed), and then run a measured 10K at about 95 percent of race effort, on the clock. A post time-trial cooldown is optional. (Contrary to popular belief, cooling down after hard running serves no purpose in terms of attenuating physiological stress or facilitating recovery. It just feels good and adds a little more volume to the workout.)

RELATED — Workout Of The Week: Tempo Trials

Nailing the targeted intensity of this workout is crucial. It should be close enough to a maximal, race-type effort to give you a strong training stimulus and an accurate measurement of your current fitness level, but it should not become a de facto race. You need to hold something back so the workout doesn’t take too much out of you, compromising your training in the next few days.

When I say “95 percent effort” I mean exactly that. So, if you currently have 40-minute 10K fitness, you should run your relaxed 10K time trial about 5 percent slower than that, or in 42 minutes. You might think that the difference between a 95 percent effort and a 100 percent effort is negligible in terms of how stressful a workout is, but it’s not. That last 5 percent makes all the difference in the world. If you are currently a 40-minute 10K racer and you run a 42-minute 10K workout, you will feel significantly more comfortable in that workout than you would in a real race and you will also significantly feel better in the next day’s run.

What’s the purpose of running a relaxed 10K time trial? Again, it gives you a very clear view of your current fitness level. In that regard, it’s the next best thing to an actual race. Once you get the hang of this workout and are able to perform it at the right intensity, you will find it very easy to convert your time to a projected race time. As in, “I think I could have run about two minutes and 15 seconds faster than the time I just ran if I’d had a gun to my head.”

Regardless of the distance of the race you are training for, your 10K performance capacity is a great indicator of your race-specific fitness. In other words, you need to be capable of running a solid 10K whether you’re preparing for a 5K or a marathon. So, I like to run a relaxed 10K time trial every three or four weeks to track my progress toward my race goals, whatever they may be at the time.

In addition to being an excellent fitness indicator, the relaxed 10K time trial is also a tremendous fitness builder. It’s important to do some very hard workouts when you are training toward doing your best in races. Hard workouts are uncomfortable, so it requires a certain amount of motivation to put in the effort required to absorb the suffering you must absorb to get the most out of such a workout. In my experience, performance test workouts are the most motivating kinds of workouts. These are workouts where the object is to put up a good number, just as you do in races, and are workouts that you do the same way every time, allowing you to compete against yourself.

Just be sure you don’t let that competition get out of hand. I keep myself in check by running conservatively in the first relaxed 10K time trial I do within a given cycle. I go hard but keep the edge off my suffering and thus produce a time that will be easy to beat when I repeat the session. Ideally, improved fitness alone will enable you to improve your relaxed 10K time trial time in each new iteration. It’s best to allow a little room to improve it through increased effort if necessary, however, because it’s important that these workouts build confidence–you need to set yourself up for success. My goal is to beat my last relaxed 10K time trial just slightly in each new one. Even if I feel capable of blowing my preceding time away on a given day, I hold myself back to leave plenty of room to post a still better time in a few weeks.

Finally, a note on the training environment. I love running on the track, so I always perform my relaxed 10K time trials there. You will certainly post faster times there than anywhere else, and being able to take splits every 400 meters helps you regulate your effort and pacing. But if you hate running in circles or don’t have ready access to an oval, you can do this workout elsewhere. Just do it in the fastest environment that’s convenient to you and do it in the same place every time, for apples-to-apples comparisons.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of numerous books, including Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress, 2011). He is also a Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. To learn more about Matt visit www.mattfitzgerald.org.  

The post Workout Of The Week: Relaxed 10K Time Trial appeared first on Competitor.com.

Forget crunches. They’re not specific enough to running. Do these moves instead.

There are lots of core exercises out there. Doing any of them is better than doing none of them. But some are definitely better for runners than others.

A strong core—that is, strong abdominal and low-back muscles—enhances running performance and may reduce injury risk. The best core exercises for runners are those that mimic the specific ways the core muscles are required to work during running. Here are three moves that do just that.

Supine March

Why it’s good for runners: Core stability begins with the transverse abdominis, a deep abdominal muscle that needs to hold the right amount of tension to prevent excessive movement of the pelvis and lumbar spine during running. The greatest challenge this muscle faces in running is maintaining appropriate tension while the legs move freely and alternately. The Supine March is a great exercise for runners because it administers that very challenge in a controlled way.

How to do it: Lie face up in the floor with both knees sharply bent and your feet flat on the floor. Press your low back into the floor. While concentrating on keeping your low back pressed into the floor, lift your left leg until your left foot comes even with your right knee. Now lower the foot back to the floor. Repeat with the right leg. Continue until you begin to feel an uncomfortable burn in your tummy, up to 20 reps per leg.

Standing Trunk Rotation with Cable

Why it’s good for runners: One of the important jobs of the core muscles during running is to control rotational forces. Among the biggest energy wasters in running is excessive rotation of the hips, pelvis, and/or spine. The Standing Rotation with Cable isolates and intensifies this particular challenge.

How to do it: Stand with your left side facing a cable pulley station with a handle attached at shoulder height. Grasp the handle with both hands and both arms fully extended. Begin with your torso rotated toward the handle and tension in the cable (i.e. the weight stack is slightly elevated from the resting position). Rotate your torso to the right while keeping your arms fully extended and the handle in line with the center of your chest. Keep your eyes focused on the handle as you rotate and your hips locked forward. Return to the start position without allowing the weight stack to come to rest. Complete 12 repetitions, then reverse your position and repeat the exercise.

Suitcase Deadlift

Why it’s good for runners: Running is all about moving against gravity in an upright position. Most core exercises don’t mimic this fundamental element of running. The Suitcase Deadlift does. In particular, it trains the oblique muscles on the sides of the torso to do what they are asked to do during running, which is to keep the torso vertically in line with the legs against resistance. The low back muscles are also challenged in a running-specific way in this exercise.

How to do it: Stand with your arms hanging at your sides and a dumbbell in one hand. Push your hips back, bend the knees, and reach the dumbbell down as close to the floor as you can without rounding your lower back. Now stand up again. Don’t allow your torso to tilt to either side while performing this movement. Complete 10 repetitions, rest for 30 seconds, then repeat the exercise while holding the dumbbell in the opposite hand.

RELATED: 

– Get Strong With The Clean Workout

– Better Torque For Better Running

– 5 Moves To Get Faster and Stronger

The post The 3 Best Core Exercises For Runners appeared first on Competitor.com.

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

The average health-conscious American is a little confused about what constitutes an optimal diet. One source of confusion is the tremendous volume of nutrition information to which we are exposed. It so saturates our culture that even those who avoid reading nutrition books and magazine articles get plenty of it. For example, just yesterday at the grocery store I grabbed a watermelon from a large crate that had a full paragraph about the merits of lycopene (a nutrient with highly touted antioxidant properties) printed on its side.

Those who conscientiously try to heed the news of each new “miracle nutrient” that’s identified and every other sort of nutrition discovery that comes along can easily become overwhelmed. I imagine my fellow shoppers wandering through the supermarket aisles thinking, “Let’s see, to prevent liver cancer I need carotenoids, which are in carrots; and to balance my prostaglandins I need alpha-linolenic acid, which is in salmon; and to lower my cholesterol I need plant sterols, which are in – dammit, I can’t remember!” No one can retain it all, and the quantities of information we do retain are overwhelming enough to make shopping, planning meals, and eating a far more enervating set of activities than they should be.

RELATED: Effective Fueling Strategies For Runners

A second source of confusion is the fact that so much of the nutrition information we get is contradictory. Why can’t the nutrition authorities keep their story straight? There’s a host of reasons. In the following pages, we’ll look at some of them.

The post Why You’re Confused About How To Eat appeared first on Competitor.com.

Learn how to make a trail running a part of your training routine. 

Many, if not most, elite runners who race on the roads do much of their training on trails. Nike coach Alberto Salazar’s runners, including Galen Rupp and Dathan Ritzenhein, run on the extensive network of trails in and around Portland, Oregon. Two-time marathon world record holder Khalid Khannouchi trains in the woods of Queen’s famous Forest Park. The large contingent of Kenyan runners who make their American training base west of Philadelphia trains exclusively off-road there.

Why do elite runners avoid pavement like the plague? Because it’s hard, of course—materially hard and hard on the body. Professional road racers must routinely log more than 100 miles per week to compete against others who are doing the same. That’s a lot of pounding on the old legs. By covering as many of those miles as possible on slightly softer surfaces such as dirt, wood chips and grass, these runners are able to absorb that pounding with a little less wear and tear on the muscles, bones and joints.

RELATED: Get Off Your Asphalt–The Benefits Of Switching Up Your Running Surface

Another advantage of running off-road that is less appreciated is that it forces the runner to vary his stride more. Trail running tends to be hillier, to require more directional changes and lateral movement, and to demand more variation in stride length and foot action to avoid obstacles and maintain traction. Some experts in running biomechanics believe that such variations accelerate the process by which the stride becomes more efficient as the brain learns novel ways to engage the muscles.

You can benefit from training off-road as much as the professionals do. Here are some tips for making a smooth transition to the trails:

Know Where You’re Going

While it can be fun to blindly explore new running trails, it’s not always wise. If you don’t take some time to research a new trail before you run it for the first time, you might find out the hard way that it is much more challenging than expected, or mazelike and conducive to losing your way, or frequented by snakes or other beasts you don’t like. Your best bet is to do your first run on a new trail with a buddy who is familiar with it.

Choose Your Line

When running on the roads you seldom have to pay much attention where you’re going. For the most part you travel straight forward and you don’t have to worry about your footing or obstacles in your path. But trail running is different. Especially on highly technical trails, it is important to keep your eyes focused roughly six strides ahead, as this will enable you to choose the smoothest and safest way forward.

Wear The Right Shoes

Trail running shoes have become a major subcategory of performance footwear for runners, but the truth is that trail-specific shoes are not necessary for the type of trail running that most runners do. On groomed fire roads and other fairly smooth trails, your regular running shoes will do just fine.

If you do any amount of running on more challenging trails, however, a trail running shoe may be necessary. Trail running shoes have features such as more durable outsoles, aggressive traction and waterproofing that make them better suited to more extreme circumstances.

Work On Your Proprioception

Acute injuries such as twisted ankles and knees are uncommon in road running, but somewhat more common in trail running. To minimize your risk of suffering such injuries, work on your proprioception (balance and body awareness) at home every other day or so. You can do this by balancing on both feet on a balance board for 4 x 30 seconds or by balancing on one foot on a BOSU ball for 2 x 30 seconds on each foot.

The post Hit The Dirt–Why And How To Run Off-Road appeared first on Competitor.com.

It’s all about finishing faster than you start.

Horseback riders are familiar with the phenomenon of the horse smelling the barn. As the horse and rider return to within sniffing range of the stable after a long ride, the horse spontaneously increases its pace to get the darn thing over with. Many human runners do something similar. When I took up running at age 12 I completed the same six-mile route every other day, and I always instinctively ran the last part faster, to get the darn thing over with.

Instinctive though it may be, picking up the pace in the last part of a run is not something that runners should do in every workout. That’s because there isn’t anything that runners should do in every workout. Training must be varied from day to day to develop well-rounded fitness. But there is a place in any structured training regimen for progression workouts, which is what coaches call runs in which the last part is run faster than the first.

RELATED: Advance Your Fitness With Progression Runs

There are three distinct types of progression runs that I like to incorporate into the training plans I design. Their benefits overlap to some degree, but the benefits of each are unique to that specific format. Let’s take a look.

Fast-Finish Run

A fast-finish progression run is a run in which the faster second part of the run is relatively short—usually between one and three miles. Fast-finish runs may be either moderately challenging or very challenging. The factors that influence the challenge level of a fast-finish run are the duration of the slower first segment (the longer it is, the more fatigued you will be when you start the faster second part and the more challenging the overall run will be), the duration of the faster second segment and the pace of the second segment.

Easier fast-finish runs are a great way to give yourself a moderate training stimulus at times when your body is ready for more than an easy run but you don’t want to leave yourself too tired to perform well in your next scheduled hard run. An example of an easier fast-finish run is five miles at a comfortable pace followed by one mile at 10K pace.

Harder fast-finish runs are great workouts for half-marathon and marathon training, because they challenge you to run fast when you’re already tired. An example of a tough marathon-specific fast-finish run is 13 miles at a comfortable pace followed by three miles at half-marathon pace.

Threshold Progression

A traditional threshold run consists of a short warmup followed by a few miles of running at “lactate threshold pace” (or the fastest pace you could sustain for one hour in race circumstances) and concluding with a short cooldown. In a threshold progression, the warmup is greatly extended and the cooldown is removed. The purpose of these changes is to create a workout that challenges you to sustain your threshold speed when you’re already tired. This makes it a great workout to use in half-marathon and marathon training. An example of a threshold progression run is five miles at a comfortable pace followed by four miles at threshold pace.

At this point I’ll pause and answer a question that may have popped into your head when reading the preceding paragraph, if not earlier: “Isn’t it bad to finish a workout without cooling down?” Actually, no. The notion that concluding workouts with a short period of low-intensity activity promotes faster recovery is mythical. Research has shown that cooling down has no effect on recovery, so it’s OK to skip it in certain workouts. (Warming up before high-intensity exercise does accelerate post-workout recovery, however.)

Marathon-Pace Progression

In marathon-pace progression runs, the faster second segment is typically longer and slower than it is in fast-finish runs and threshold progression runs. Marathon-pace progression runs are an effective means to increase the challenge level and race-specificity of long endurance runs. Many runners make the mistake of doing all of their Saturday or Sunday long runs at a moderate pace, but once you have used these runs to develop sufficient raw endurance, they don’t provide any further benefit unless you pick up the pace.

You don’t have to be training for a marathon to benefit from marathon-pace progression runs. They provide excellent aerobic support for any race distance, although you will want to use them differently depending on your specific race distance. If you’re training for a 5K or 10K, marathon-pace progression runs should be emphasized relatively early in the training process and then phased out in favor of long runs that include even faster running. If you’re training for a half-marathon or marathon, they should be emphasized later in the training process, and they should be longer. A good peak-level marathon-pace progression run, appropriate for three to four weeks before a marathon, is two miles at a moderate pace followed by 14 miles at marathon pace.

I could write an entirely separate article about how to incorporate the various progression run formats into different types of training programs. As a broad guideline, I recommend that all runners include at least one progression run per week in their training at all times. Always choose the specific format that fits best with your immediate training objectives.

The post Workout Of The Week: Progression Runs appeared first on Competitor.com.

Study suggests carbs are not the main culprit.

Symptoms of gastrointestinal distress, including nausea and flatulence, are relatively common during endurance races such as marathons and Ironman triathlons. Athletes commonly assume that GI distress is caused by overconsumption of carbohydrate (sports drinks, gels, and so forth). However, a study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that this is not the case.

Researchers at four European universities recruited 221 athletes who participated collectively in two Ironman triathlons, one Ironman 70.3 event, a long cycling time trial, a cycling stage race, and a marathon and invited them to fill out questionnaires after completing their events. The athletes were asked to recall their nutrition intake during their individual races and rate the severity of 12 different symptoms of GI distress on a 0-9 scale.

Analyzing the data on nutrition intake, the researchers determined the average rate of carbohydrate intake in each type of race. Triathletes consumed the most carbs, at rates of 62 to 71 grams per hour in the three races included. Cyclists consumed somewhat less carbohydrate (53 g/h), while marathon runners took in the least—just 35 g/h.

RELATED: How often should you fuel during long runs?

Serious GI symptoms were reported in 31 percent of Ironman triathletes, 14 percent of Ironman 70.3 racers, 7 percent of cycling stage-race participants, 4 percent of cycling time-trial competitors, and 4 percent of marathoners. As you can see, there was a clear correlation between the average rate of carbohydrate intake in each type of race and the risk of serious GI symptoms.

Before we blame race GI problems entirely on overconsumption of carbohydrate, however, we need to dig a little deeper. If carbs were truly the main culprit then we would expect to see that, within each type of race, those athletes who consumed the most carbs had the highest risk for GI distress. But this association was not seen in runners, cyclists, or Ironman 70.3 racers. Only Ironman racers faced a greater risk of GI distress when they consumed more carbs.

It also bears noting that the rate of serious GI symptoms was more than twice as high in Ironman racers than in Ironman 70.3 competitors despite the fact that the rates of carbohydrate intake were the same. It’s interesting as well that the rates of GI distress were the same in marathon runners and cycling stage racers despite the fact that the cyclists consumed 50 percent more carbs, on average.

These numbers suggest that the particular nature of the race contributes to the risk of GI distress more than the rate of carbohydrate intake does. It seems likely that the risk of GI distress in the two Ironman events was more than two times greater than in any other race simply because it lasted twice as long as any other race for most participants. I think you’d find that the risk of all kinds of things—heat illness, bonking, etc.—was more than two times greater in the Ironman. It’s just more stressful all around.

Yet the incidence of GI distress in an Ironman 70.3 was twice as high as the risk in a cycling stage race despite taking no longer to complete. This tells us that not only the length of a race but also the transition from cycling to running contributes to the risk of GI distress. It would be very interesting to know exactly when symptoms of GI distress most commonly appeared in the triathlons studied. I’d be willing to bet it was within the first 10K of the marathon start.

RELATED: Race Fueling Made Simple

There’s a reason the runners in this study reported consuming only 35 grams of carbohydrate per hour while racing a marathon, whereas cyclists reported taking in 53 g/h. The GI system cannot tolerate as much nutrition consumption during running as it can on the bike. In triathlons, racers commonly consume carbs at a rate that is tolerable on the bike, only to find that the amount or concentration of calories in their guts becomes intolerable once they start running.

Besides the particular nature of the stress that a given type of race doles out, there is another factor that also appears to be more important than the rate of carb intake in relation to the risk of GI distress: past history of such problems. The researchers found that the correlation between past GI problems in races and GI problems in the races included in this study was stronger than the correlation between the rate of carbohydrate intake in the studied races and GI distress. In other words, athletes with a history of GI problems tended to have GI problems in these races even at lower levels of carb intake, while those without such histories tended not to have problems even at higher rates of carb intake.

A final note: Even though higher rates of carb intake were linked to higher risk of GI issues in Ironman races, those athletes who consumed the most carbs also tended to finish the race faster! Just because you experience some nausea and flatulence during an Ironman does not automatically mean your race is ruined. More often than not, these things are just a price you pay for doing an Ironman and for taking in enough fuel to finish with the quickest time possible–and they’re a price worth paying.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Why Do You Feel Like Puking During Races? appeared first on Competitor.com.

A couple simple stride tweaks may reduce injury risk.

Some runners land harder than others—even when body weight and speed (which actually has a greater effect on impact forces than body weight)—are held constant. Past research has shown that runners who land harder get injured more often. Two published studies provide evidence that runners can make simple changes to soften their landing when they run and thereby potentially reduce their injury risk.

Overstriding is commonly associated with excessive impact. Overstriding consists in touching the foot to the ground heel-first well ahead of the hips. Runners who overstride take fewer steps per minute at a given running speed than runners who do not overstride. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin recently investigated whether they could reduce impact forces in runners by increasing their stride rate.

RELATED: Are you a stomper?

The researchers measured various kinetic and kinematic variables in runners as they ran at their preferred stride rate and at stride rates 5 and 10 percent greater and less than the preferred. They found that when runners increased their stride rate by 10 percent they exhibited a significantly reduced tendency to overstride and a significant reduction in impact forces.

You can try this at home by counting the number of strides you take in one minute when running normally, then fiddling with your stride to get a 10 percent increase. It will feel funny at first but may become more natural over time if you consistently enforce your new strides-per-minute target.

Another study on the effects of stride manipulations on injury–related factors appears in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In this study, researchers at the universities of Kentucky and Delaware trained runners suffering from patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) to reduce a tendency to collapse at the hip during the stance phase of the stride, a biomechanical flaw that is associated with PFPS risk. The researchers used biofeedback to teach the runners to prevent the unsupported side of the pelvis from dropping in the stance phase over eight sessions. They then let the runners loose into the world to train on their own for one month. Finally, they brought the runners back to see if the changes had stuck and to assess changes in their levels of pain and function.

RELATED: Are you committing these form flaws?

The gait retraining appeared to work, producing measurable changes in hip mechanics that lasted through the month of unsupervised running. There were also significant improvements in pain levels and function, although there was no control group so we can’t rule out the possibility that these improvements would have occurred anyway.

Unexpectedly, the researchers found that the changes to the subjects’ strides also yielded significant reductions in impact forces. It appears that the specific intent to run without pelvic tilting resulted in global changes that affected impact forces.

You can try this one at home by concentrating on squeezing your right buttock the instant before your right foot touches the ground when you run, and doing the same on the left side. As with the increase in stride rate described above, this one cannot be made permanent unless you do it consciously on every stride until it starts to happen automatically, which could take a few weeks.

The post Land Softly And Carry Less Injury Risk appeared first on Competitor.com.

There is more than one way to eat for optimal health. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“Have you seen the documentary Forks Over Knives?” Sue wrote. “The essence of the documentary is that humans greatly increase their risk of cancer and heart disease if any animal products are consumed. I love meat, but I’d gladly eliminate animal products from my diet if they are truly ‘toxic’ or dangerous for me.”

If you’re not familiar with the film Sue referred to, you’ll get a full sense of what it’s all about from watching the trailer. The documentary’s argument for vegetarianism is based largely on the work of Colin Campbell, a veteran nutrition researcher who first made a name for himself with his book, The China Study, which made the same argument as the later film.

MORE: Nature Doesn’t Make Junk Food

It’s easy to understand why a non-vegetarian who is generally concerned about eating right would come away from watching Forks Over Knives in a state of high alarm. Although the film uses every technique in the book to prey on the viewer’s emotions and susceptibility to fear, the content is fundamentally science based. All kinds of studies and statistics and correlations are cited, which seem to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that eating animal products of any kind and in any amount is bad for human health.

Loren Cordain is also a veteran nutrition researcher. Author of The Paleo Diet, Cordain believes that eating meat is essential for optimal health. Grains are the great devil of his diet philosophy. Walter Willett is also a veteran nutrition researcher. Author of Eat, Drink, And Be Healthy, Willett is an advocate of the Mediterranean diet, in which both meat and grains have a part.

I think you see the point I’m getting at here. If all of these diets are based on science, why are they so different?

There are two reasons. First, while science has come up with all kinds of correlations between particular dietary patterns and risk levels for particular diseases, it has not even come close to definitively defining the perfect diet. This situation allows individual scientists to cherry-pick certain correlations and then make a speculative leap to define the perfect diet.

“Because people who don’t eat meat showed a lower risk for disease A in study B,” declares scientist X, “vegetarianism must be the perfect diet.

“Because people who don’t eat grain showed a lower risk for disease C in study D,” declares scientist Y, “then the Paleo Diet must be the perfect diet.”

“Because people who ate a Mediterranean diet (including meat and grains) showed a lower risk for disease E in study F,” says scientist Z, “the Mediterranean diet must be the perfect diet.”

RELATED-Racing Weight: Keep It Simple

While all of the studies on which these conclusions are based may be valid, the conclusions are not. They are speculative leaps. But wait: Aren’t scientists trained not to speculate? So why, then, do so many nutrition scientists do it?

Because we have to eat. We can’t wait until science defines the perfect diet once and for all to eat as healthily as we can in the meantime. So we have to make decisions based on what evidence we have. This is not an excuse for making the kinds of speculative leaps I’ve just described, but it is an explanation. Scientists are human. Some who decide to eat a certain way for themselves based on what they know and what they infer can’t help but declare their personal choice to be the one true path for everyone.

Personally, I don’t think science will ever define the perfect diet for everyone. The sum of all available evidence gives a pretty strong indication that most people can achieve more or less optimal health on a variety of different diets. Put another way, many diets are good enough, and none is perfect.

This is what I told Sue, and with evident relief Sue replied that she plans to continue to include some animal products in her diet.

****

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post The Imaginary Perfect Diet appeared first on Competitor.com.

No, Red Bull and Gatorade are not interchangeable.

Some months ago I was interviewed by a reporter for the Detroit Free Press on the topic of sports drinks. One of his questions concerned the difference between sports drinks and energy drinks. At first I thought it was a question he asked just to hear my answer, already knowing the answer himself. But a follow-up question revealed that the journalist was genuinely confused about the difference between the two categories, and even uncertain about whether there was a difference. Figuring he probably wasn’t the only one, I’ve decided to answer the question again here.

Sports drinks are easy to define. They are beverages formulated specifically for use during exercise and for the sake of enhancing exercise performance. Even though more than 99 percent of the two most popular sports drinks are not consumed in the exercise context, they are in fact intended for that context.

RELATED: Do the benefits of caffeine come at a cost?

Energy drinks are a more amorphous category. They are a hybrid of lifestyle beverages and functional beverages. Like other soft drinks, they provide refreshment and flavor at meals, between meals, whenever. But they also contain functional ingredients—mainly caffeine—to provide perceptions of wakefulness and energy for whenever they are needed.

Many consumers, I think, assume that the formulations of sports drinks and energy drinks are more or less the same. While they are certainly more similar than coffee and milk, there are important differences. Sports drinks contain moderate amounts of mixed carbohydrate to maximize energy supply to working muscles while minimizing the risk of causing GI distress, which can happen all too easily when the stomach is overloaded during exercise. Sports drinks also contain sodium and other electrolyte minerals to replace those lost in sweat.

The typical energy drink contains significantly more carbohydrate and calories than the typical sports drink and gets most or all of those carbs and calories from one or two sugars, such as high fructose corn syrup (a blend of fructose and glucose). For example, Red Bull contains 26 grams of carbs, all sugar, per 8.3-oz serving, while Gatorade contains 16 g of carbs per 8-oz. serving, of which 13 g are sugar. Because of their higher carbohydrate concentration and their heavy use of fructose, energy drinks are much more likely than sports drinks to cause stomach upset during exercise. Many energy drinks are also carbonated, further increasing the associated risk of GI distress.

RELATED: Effective Fueling Strategies For Runners

Nevertheless, some energy drinks may enhance exercise performance, just as sports drinks do. That’s because the water and carbs they provide are better than nothing, and also because they contain caffeine, which is ergogenic. The best use of energy drinks in relation to exercise may be as a sort of neuromuscular primer before a workout. The large influx of glucose into the blood stream, and of caffeine to the brain, that energy drinks administer will make you feel like really getting after it. This was shown in a recent study by Iranian researchers, who compared the effects of two energy drinks, Red Bull and Hype, to the effects of flavored water on exercise performance when consumed immediately before exercise. Maximal oxygen consumption and time to exhaustion were significantly greater after either of the energy drinks was consumed.

It’s interesting that while caffeine is well known to boost exercise performance, most sports drinks do not contain it, while most energy drinks do. It’s just as well that most sports drinks don’t have caffeine, however, because the ergogenic effects of caffeine disappear with habituation. So a sports drink with caffeine would work really well for you the first time you used it, not quite as well the second time, etc. But while the caffeine in any sports drink you used regularly would cease to boost your performance, its psychological effects would persist. There’s something to be said for taking caffeine before a big workout just for the sake of feeling readier to work out, even if it doesn’t make you go faster or last longer.

The immense popularity of energy drinks and the widespread use of caffeine by athletes has started many sports drink company executives to thinking. The result has been the recent emergence of a new sports nutrition category of pre-workout primers. Currently, most such products are marketed to bodybuilders, who are notoriously supplement happy and who like to show up at the gym ready to bite the heads off bats. But the category is expanding into mainstream and endurance sports.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Energy Drinks vs. Sports Drinks appeared first on Competitor.com.

You’ve finished your first marathon. Congratulations! Now what?

Most people run their first marathon with a goal of finishing. Even Olympian Shalane Flanagan stated her goal as finishing before running her first marathon in New York a few years back. Most first-time marathon finishers soon decide they want to do another one – only this time the goal will be not just to finish, but to finish faster. Achieving this goal will require that you take your training to the next level. Here are some guidelines on how to do that.

RELATED: How fast should you run?

Increase your mileage

In order to run a faster marathon you will most likely need to train a little more than you trained before. Like it or not, there is a very close correlation between running mileage and marathon performance. But when you do increase your running mileage you must do so slowly and cautiously so that your body can adapt incrementally and avoid breakdown. Be patient. Even if you have both the time and the desire to emulate the training patterns of some hardcore Boston qualifier friend, you need to move in that direction step by step over a period of not weeks or months but years. This is the surest way to improve consistently over the long haul.

You can increase your weekly mileage both by increasing the number of workouts you perform each week and by increasing the duration of individual workouts. Each carries its own benefits, so you will want to do both, but again, slowly and cautiously. First work your way toward performing six or seven runs per week, plus supplemental stretching and strengthening. From there, work on increasing the duration of two or three of those runs.

Work on your speed

Another tried and true means of increasing marathon performance is to regularly perform workouts involving running speeds that are significantly faster than marathon pace. Such workouts increase the body’s capacity to consume oxygen during running, so that you can sustain faster running speeds more comfortably. There are two specific types of workouts that I recommend for speed building: interval runs and tempo runs.

An interval run features relatively short segments of faster running separated by slow “recovery” jogs. For example, after warming up with a mile or two of easy jogging, run a mile at your 10K race pace, or the fastest pace you feel you could sustain for six miles. Jog a quarter-mile and then run another fast mile. After completing a second recovery jog and a third fast mile, cool down with another mile or two of easy running. Repeat the workout a week later, adding a fourth fast mile. Build up to six fast miles over the next few weeks. By the end of this process you will feel much better able to sustain faster running speeds comfortably.

Build your own training plan

One-size-fits all training plans found in magazines and books and on websites are fine for first-timers, but as you aim higher you need to graduate to more customized training – which means you need to get a coach or learn how to build your own training plans.

RELATED: Returning To Training After A Big Race

A training program should be 12 to 24 weeks in length. It can be shorter (that is, closer to 12 weeks) when your initial fitness level is higher. It should be longer (closer to 24 weeks) when your initial fitness level is lower. The training program should always be close to 24 weeks if you are in search of a true peak performance.

Five basic steps are involved in creating a training schedule:

(1) Choose a peak race – Your program should end on the day of your next marathon and should be structured so that you achieve a fitness “peak” on this day.

(2) Divide the training cycle into phases – A marathon training program should be divided into three phases of roughly equal length. In the base phase, you will focus on building general endurance by performing a gradually increasing volume of low- to moderate-intensity training. In the intensity phase, you will mix in some high-intensity interval workouts in each discipline. In the peak phase, you will continue to do some high-intensity work but the emphasis will shift toward longer intervals that are close to race pace.

(3) Set your mileage – Next you should decide how much training (on a miles-per-week basis) is sensible for you at this stage and plot a target mileage for each week of the program. Start with a mileage level that is close to the amount you do currently and increase it a little each week until you reach a reasonable maximum; from there it should hold steady. Be sure to plan a reduced-mileage recovery week every third or fourth week.

(4) Plan key workouts – Key workouts are the hardest and most effective workouts you will do each week. These include your longest run and your high-intensity interval workouts. It is a good idea to schedule these sessions well ahead of time to ensure that your training program has a smooth trajectory toward peak fitness.

(5) Fill in the gaps – Once your key workouts have been scheduled, round out your training program by scheduling your runs, and possibly also your stretching and strengthening sessions. There’s no need to plan them in detail. Wait until the time for each workout arrives and simply do the workout your body needs and is ready for.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Finish Your Second Marathon Faster appeared first on Competitor.com.

It’s important to work on your finishing sprint even if you aren’t trying to win races.

Races are often decided by a finishing sprint. Take this the 2011 Boston Marathon, for example. Kenyans Moses Mosop and Geoffrey Mutai ran side by side at the front of the race all the way to the homestretch on Boylston Street. They remained side by side until they were within 100 yards of the finish line, when Mutai unleashed a kick that was too much for his countryman to match, and Mutai won by 4 seconds.

Geoffrey Mutai is living proof that the strength of a runner’s finishing kick can be the difference between winning and losing at the highest levels of competition. But is a strong closing sprint really so important for you? The answer to this question is a resounding yes, but the reason may surprise you.

Let’s face it: Even if you are a highly competitive age-group runner, the two or three seconds you might gain from improving your kick will seldom, if ever, determine whether you achieve or fall short of your race goals. However, the efforts you make to become a faster sprinter will also make you a faster runner in general, and that certainly will make a meaningful difference in your outcomes.

RELATED: Speed Development For Distance Runners

A 2006 study by New Zealand researchers proves it. Twenty competitive runners were separated into two groups. One group continued to do their normal run training, while the other group replaced some of their running with workouts designed to improve their maximum sprint speed. All of the runners performed tests of maximum speed and 5K performance before the study started and again after six weeks. Compared to the runners who continued with their usual training, those who trained for a better kick increased their maximum sprint speed by 1.8 percent—and improved their 5K time by 1.2 percent.

How does training for a better sprint improve distance-running performance? Other research suggests that it works by improving running economy. Specifically, sprint training enhanceses a stride characteristic known as leg stiffness, which allows the legs to function as more efficient springs during running, even over long distances.

Training to improve your kick (and with it your running economy and overall running performance) is simple and doesn’t require much time. In fact, it’s important not to spend too much time on this type of training, because it’s fairly stressful and could cause injury or overtraining fatigue if overdone.

The runners in the New Zealand study improved their kicks by performing workouts combining explosive single-leg jumps and repeated, short, uphill sprints on a treadmill.  They completed these 30-minute sessions of jumps and sprints every four days. You’ll find it more efficient and manageable to add jumps and short sprints to workouts you’re already doing.

Incorporate three sets of 20 explosive single-leg jumps per leg into your strength-training sessions. Also do 10 uphill sprints lasting 10 seconds each once a week after completing an easy run. Recover after each sprint by walking back downhill. Ease into these types of training by starting with just one set of jumps and three or four sprints.

Use a standardized sprint test such as a timed 100-meter dash to determine whether your kick-building efforts are working.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Improve Your Economy By Investing In A Killer Kick appeared first on Competitor.com.

Indoor threshold runs don’t have to be boring.

Most competitive distance runners like threshold runs. Sustained running at a moderately fast pace combines the fun of fast running with the relative comfort of controlled running. What’s enjoyable outdoors in a nice environment isn’t always enjoyable indoors on a treadmill, however. Threshold runs on the treadmill can be dreadfully boring.

Sometimes you have little choice but to do them, though. What if your next scheduled threshold run falls on a day when it happens to be 100 degrees outside—too hot to sustain your desired pace? Or what if you’re traveling for business and staying at a hotel that’s located in an area with no good places to run? In these cases a simple tweak to the standard threshold run format can allow you to move your workout indoors without giving up on any possibility of enjoying it.

Here’s what you do. First, imagine you are going to do the workout outdoors anyway. What pace and what duration are appropriate at this stage in your training? Threshold runs are typically done at roughly one-hour maximum pace, or the fastest pace you could sustain for one hour in race conditions. The appropriate duration of your effort at that pace is usually 20 to 40 minutes. You want to do enough running at threshold pace that it becomes challenging toward the end, but you don’t want the workout to leave you totally exhausted.

RELATED: Learning How To Run Workouts By Feel

Suppose your current threshold pace is 6:00 (hey, you’re a pretty good runner!) and you decide that 20 minutes is an appropriate duration to sustain that pace today. To modify this session for the treadmill, break the 20-minute tempo effort into 20 segments of 1 minute each and alternate segments at 5:50 pace with segments at 6:10 pace. The rationale here is that one of the best tricks to make treadmill running psychologically bearable is variation. The more change you can throw into a treadmill run, the faster the time will go by.

Physiologically, a workout structured as 10 x (1 minute @ 5:50 per mile/1 minute @ 6:10 per mile) is essentially the same as 20 minutes straight at 6:00 per mile. But the former is less boring because there’s a change every minute. What typically happens in such a session is that, because the faster segments are a little faster than your normal threshold pace, you strain a bit in them and deal with that strain mentally by becoming very focused and looking forward to the relief of the next slower segment. Then in the slower segment—which isn’t really much slower, but just enough—your mindset shifts over to wanting the clock to slow down. But of course it doesn’t. Before you know it, your 20 minutes (or whatever) are up and it’s time to cool down. (Speaking of which, don’t forget to warm up too with at least 10 minutes of easy jogging.)

You can add another kind of twist by playing with inclines. Instead of speeding up for the harder segments, you can maintain the same pace but raise the treadmill to a 3 percent grade. Or you could even slow down a bit and raise the treadmill to 5 percent to create a net increase in effort. As long as the harder segments are just a little harder than your normal threshold effort and the easier segments are proportionately easier—and as long as you’re not bored—you’re doing it right.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Workout Of The Week: 2-Speed Treadmill Threshold Run appeared first on Competitor.com.

Weight loss may never be as easy as taking a pill, but a few supplements can help you shed fat a bit more easily.

If any of the dozens of different kinds of weight-loss supplements on the market worked—I mean really worked—then two-thirds of American adults would not be overweight or obese. It’s that simple. When any type of supplement lives up to its promises, it does not remain a secret or a marginal product that consumers cycle on and off as wave after wave of suckers falls for the testimonials, fake science and celebrity endorsements, discovers it doesn’t do anything, and moves on.

That’s why nearly every weightlifter takes creatine. It works and everyone knows it. But as much as you might hope to discover some supplement out there that makes weight management easy, there is no creatine equivalent in the weight-loss market. In fact, the more you look to or rely on supplements for weight loss, the less likely it is that you will succeed in losing weight, not only because every product you try will fail to meet your expectations, but also because your “magic bullet” mentality will distract you from the measures that really work: eating healthy, training consistently, avoiding overeating, and so forth.

RELATED: 7 Supplements That Aren’t A Total Waste Of Money

That said, I do believe there are a few supplements that runners seeking weight loss should consider taking. It’s a short list, but some products can slightly enhance the results you get from the measures mentioned above in certain circumstances. These supplements are not magic bullets, nor are they necessary for the achievement of one’s ideal racing weight; however each is worth considering.

Calcium

Calcium plays a rule in regulating a hormone that influences body fat storage. Studies have shown that inadequate calcium intake increases the risk of overweight and that individuals who do not get enough calcium in their diet tend to lose weight when they increase their calcium intake. Adults should aim to get at least 1000 mg of calcium daily. Pregnant and postmenopausal women need 1500 mg.

Creatine

While it’s generally considered a muscle-building supplement and is mostly used by athletes in strength and speed sports, creatine can be useful to endurance athletes seeking to improve their body composition. Research has shown that creatine supplementation enhances improvements in body composition that result from weightlifting. So you might want to consider taking creatine at times when you are prioritizing strength building, as every runner should do during “off-season” breaks between race-focused training cycles.

Fiber

Fiber takes up space in the stomach and promotes satiety without actually contributing any calories to the body’s metabolism. Naturally high-fiber foods, such as vegetables, therefore provide more fullness per calorie than other foods. Men and women who maintain high-fiber diets tend to be leaner than those who don’t get much fiber.

Most American adults fail to meet their dietary fiber requirement of 14 grams per 1,000 calories. While it’s best to get all the fiber you need from whole foods, a fiber supplement is an acceptable way to make up for any shortfall. Studies have shown that fiber supplementation causes weight loss in obese individuals. It’s not likely to have such a large effect in the typical triathlete, but it may yield a small benefit.

Green Tea Extract

Green tea contains a class of antioxidants known as catechins that, among other effects, increase fat burning. Studies show that green tea extract slightly increases fat loss resulting from a reduced-calorie diet. This effect alone wouldn’t be sufficient to make supplementation worth considering for most triathletes, but since catechins have other benefits, including improved cardiovascular healthy, you might want to try a green tea extract supplement—or just start drinking green tea!

Whey Protein

Studies have shown that a high-protein diet, where roughly 30 percent of daily calories come from protein, promotes fat loss by reducing appetite. Getting 30 percent of your calories from protein is not easy without eating a lot of meat and/or fish unless you supplement. Whey protein supplements allow one to maintain a high-protein diet in a healthier and more calorie-efficient way than gorging on flesh all day.

A 30 percent protein diet is generally not advisable year-round for runners, because it necessarily limits carbohydrate intake, and a high-carbohydrate diet is needed to support heavy training loads. It’s best to increase protein intake to this level during the off-season, when endurance training is reduced.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Should You Supplement for Weight Loss? appeared first on Competitor.com.

Be sure to do both general and specific warm-up activities before races and faster workouts.

In high school I performed static stretches before every run: 30-second toe touches and the like. I’ve since learned that this is one of the worst possible ways to prepare for a run. That’s because long-hold stretches activate a protective neuromuscular reflex that temporarily reduces maximal force production capacity. What this means is that you can’t jump as high after static stretching, and running is, of course, a form of jumping.

I am told by people who know better than I that it’s okay to do static stretching before a run as long as you do something dynamic after completing your static stretches. So if, for whatever reason, you like to do static stretches before a run, it’s okay to do them; just be sure to do some walking lunges and other such dynamic movements afterward and before you start running.

RELATED: Don’t Skimp On The Warmup

Of course, this is only relevant to high-intensity runs such as races and speed workouts in which you test the limits of your performance. It doesn’t really matter if you start an easy run with compromised maximal force production capacity caused by prior static stretching. In fact, it’s not necessary to warm up at all before an easy run. Easy running itself is a good warm-up, so it’s built right into that kind of workout.

Warming up is necessary before any race or workout in which your pace will exceed your lactate threshold pace, or the fastest pace you could sustain for an hour in a race. A proper warm-up before high-intensity running will enhance your performance and also reduce muscle damage incurred during the run, so you’re not as sore the next day.

There are two components to a good warm-up: general and specific. A general warm-up elevates the core body temperature and lubricates the muscles, allowing them to contract and relax more efficiently. A specific warm-up increases neuromuscular activation, preparing the muscles to fire in the specific way they will be asked to do in the race or workout.

VIDEO: 3 Drills For A Better Running Stride

The ideal general warm-up for fast running is slow running. Sure, riding a bike or inline skating would elevate your core body temperature just as well, but obviously there is a degree of specificity in jogging that makes it the ideal way to begin your warm-up for a running race or workout. It takes at least 10 minutes to do the job; 30 seconds of nervous jogging in place behind the start line won’t cut it. Elite runners typically jog for 20-25 minutes before races. That’s too much for many age-group runners, who may begin to feel the first hints of fatigue after 25 minutes of jogging.

After you complete your jog, it’s time for your specific warm-up. This entails repetitive movements that take your major joints through a full range of motion. Start with gentler movements and work toward ballistic actions. Here’s a suggested sequence:

Forward/backward arms swings

Side-to-side trunk rotations with arms extended outward

Walking lunges

Forward/backward leg swings

Side-to-side leg swings

Hopping in place with locked knees

Jogging forward while rotating hips from left to right

Jogging in place with high knees

Jogging in place with butt kicks

Do each of these movements for 20 seconds.

Finally, cap off your specific warm-up with a set of strides. Run for 20 seconds at race pace or at the pace you’re targeting in the workout. Stop, walk for 20 seconds, turn around, and run 20 seconds again at race/workout pace. Complete four of these 20-second strides. Naturally, this is as specific as a warm-up can get. Strides serve the threefold purpose of grooving your target race or workout pace, completing the neuromuscular priming process, and making the start of the workout or race less psychologically shocking.

Run your strides as close to the start of the race or workout as possible. Ideally, you’ll finish your last stride 30 seconds before the gun goes off.

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post The Perfect Warmup For Running Workouts appeared first on Competitor.com.

Go ahead, run like a horse smelling the barn.

Most runners seldom or never do the neatly structured workouts presented in this series. Instead they jog. Even serious competitive runners jog most of the time. They may run tempo on Tuesday and hills on Friday, or intervals on Wednesday and fartlek on Saturday, but the rest of the time they’re jogging.

What is jogging? Usually it entails running a predetermined distance or duration at a steady, moderate pace. That pace is usually selected by feel. I believe that the “natural pace” runners fall into when jogging represents a compromise between the competing desires to feel comfortable during the run and to complete the run as quickly as possible. The product of this compromise is an effort that is neither easy nor hard.

RELATED: Tempo Run–With a Twist!

The typical jog is not really done at a metronomically steady pace from start to finish, however. More often than not, the runner picks up the pace spontaneously toward the end. This is the classic phenomenon of the horse smelling the barn. What’s interesting about what I will henceforth refer to as the “fast finish” is that it usually does not feel any harder than the slower running preceding it, and not infrequently it actually feels better. How is this possible?

I’ll tell you how. Perceived exertion during exercise is determined not only by physiology (e.g. how fast your heart is beating), as is commonly assumed, but also by information received consciously. For example, it’s likely that you will feel better at a given level of fatigue when you are within sight of a race finish line than when you are just passing the halfway mark. The physiology is the same, but the information is different, so you feel different.

This is not just a speculation on my part, but has been proven scientifically. In my book, RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel, I talk about a study conducted at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in which runners reported their subjective rating of perceived exertion (RPE) once each minute throughout a series of moderate-intensity treadmill runs. In one of these runs, they were told to run for 10 minutes, but at the end of 10 minutes they were told to run for another 10 minutes. There was a sudden spike in RPE in the 11^th minute of this test. That is, when the runners’ expectations for the difficulty of the workout were thwarted, it suddenly felt more difficult. In the second run, the runners were told to run for 20 minutes at the same intensity. There was no spike in effort at any point in this second run, although it was in fact structurally identical to the first run. The only difference was that this second workout conformed to their expectations. The mere fact that the identical first workout was harder than expected made it actually harder.

So perception of effort is a matter of choice, to some degree, and that’s why runners tend to pick up the pace at the end of a jog. In the first half or three quarters of the run your brain will use perception of effort to discourage you from running too fast, to conserve energy and limit the stress of the workout. But once you pass the post office or the one-mile-to-go mark, your brain consciously registers that you’ve essentially made it home and there’s no harm in loosening the reigns and letting the horses run a bit. So you accelerate, and not only that, but you feel good doing it.

Many running experts discourage the fast finish because they don’t appreciate the role of the brain in regulating exercise performance. They believe every run should have a strict physiological rationale and that the runner should stick to that rationale from start to finish. They see the fast finish as a reckless breach of format that subjects the body to unnecessary stress.

I disagree. Your subconscious is smart. It wouldn’t make you feel like finishing fast if it was really a bad thing. The very reason your brain gives you the urge to finish fast is that it has calculated you can do so without undue strain. Forget what your heart rate monitor says. The fact that you feel good running fast from the post office to the end of your driveway is all the evidence you need that this little injection of play into your training is in fact good for you.

I think you should go ahead and allow yourself to finish fast whenever you feel like it. Start the acceleration whenever the urge strikes, whether it’s just after the turnaround point of an out-and-back or when you turn onto your block, and run at whatever pace feels right from there. Don’t go to the well—leave that for your tempos, hills, and intervals—just put out an effort that feels exhilaratingly challenging. A controlled fast finish will not leave you wasted for the next day’s structured high-intensity workout, and a habit of indulging in controlled fast finishes whenever you please will make you a little fitter over time by adding a bit of extra work—and fun—into your training.

The post Workout Of The Week: Fast Finish appeared first on Competitor.com.

Everything you’ve learned up to this point is wrong.

Lactic acid is nasty stuff. Your muscles produce it during intense exercise. It’s a metabolic byproduct that makes no contribution to exercise performance. It causes muscle fatigue and post-exercise muscle soreness. No wonder the best endurance athletes don’t produce as much lactic acid.

Actually, none of the above statements is true. Recent research has demonstrated that lactic acid is not what we once though it was, in almost every way. Read on, and learn the truth behind the lies you’ve been told.

The post Six Lies You Were Taught About Lactic Acid appeared first on Competitor.com.

Here are some proven suggestions on how to feel better, faster.

Run training can be a pain in the neck. But more often, it’s a pain in the knee, or the hip, or the foot. The most common type of pain associated with endurance training is post-exercise muscle soreness, which is normal, essentially harmless, and goes away on its own very quickly. Less often, however, pain is the first sign of an emerging injury. This type of pain is usually more intense and localized—and it will only get worse if you don’t do something about it. So as soon as you start to experience injury pain, you need to modify your training so that you don’t aggravate the area. Then try any of the following half-dozen proven remedies to help control the tissue inflammation that always underlies injury pain.

Cold Therapy

“Cold therapy” is a general term for what is most commonly called “icing,” but also includes cold baths and ice massage. Cold therapy reduces inflammation and associated pain by causing blood vessels to constrict, restricting blood flow to the affected area. Cold therapy is most effective when it is done frequently. Try it three or more times per day for 10 minutes at a time.

Anti-Inflammatory Meds

When you think of medicines that treat inflammation, the first ones that come to mind are probably non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and aspirin. Taking one of these over-the-counter medications is an effective way to get temporary relief from the symptoms of pain and inflammation due to injury. Simply use them according to label directions when you have a new injury or a degree of pain that you cannot easily ignore. Avoid long-term use of NSAIDs, however, as it increases your risk of ulcers, kidney damage, and joint cartilage deterioration. Also, do not use NSAIDs to treat normal post-exercise muscle soreness, as such drugs actually retard the process of muscle-tissue repair and muscle recovery.

Natural Alternatives

If you prefer to limit your use of drugs, there are some natural alternatives to NSAIDs you should consider when you’re dealing with inflammation. Two popular natural alternatives are bromelain and arnica. Bromelain is an enzyme extracted from pineapple fruit. It has a narrower effect than NSAIDs, preventing the synthesis of specific pro-inflammatory compounds, and works best when consumed on an empty stomach. Follow label dosage instructions.  Arnica (short for arnica montana, also known as wolf’s bane) is a flowering plant that is used to create topical creams, ointments, and tinctures. It is believed to affect the inflammatory response at an early stage, but instead of completely interrupting the inflammatory response—as NSAIDs do—arnica gently suppresses it. As with bromelain, follow instructions on the package label for dosage.

Elevation

The general principle behind elevation is to decrease inflammation at the site of injury by reducing blood flow to that area. If there is swelling in the injured area, elevate it above the level of your heart for 10 minutes, three to five times a day.

Compression

Compressing an injury with a compression wrap also helps to manage inflammation by reducing blood flow to the area. Effective compression requires proper technique that you may need to learn from a doctor or physical therapist. A good example is wrapping a sprained ankle. It’s important to fill the hollows in the ankle area with some type of padding before wrapping it. Otherwise you will squeeze blood into the areas you’re trying to compress it out of.

Acupuncture

Recent studies have shown this ancient Chinese medical treatment alleviates pain associated with a variety of conditions, from low-back pain to osteoarthritis. And according to some experts, it works well for many sports injuries, too. It is speculated that acupuncture achieves its therapeutic effects by altering nervous system activity, but the specific mechanisms are still unknown. If you choose to try acupuncture as a treatment for a sports injury, make an effort to find a practitioner who is experienced in working with athletes.

The post Give Your Aches & Pains The Knockout Punch appeared first on Competitor.com.

Runners can permanently reduce impact forces through biofeedback.

Irene Davis of Harvard University is one of the world’s leading pioneers of gait retraining for runners. Gait retraining consists of systematically encouraging specific changes in the strides of runners that correct characteristics associated with elevated injury risk. One such characteristic is an esoteric variable called peak tibial acceleration, which is basically a measurement of how hard the runner lands on the ground with each step. In a study coauthored with Harrison Crowell of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and published in Clinical Biomechanics, Davis used a form of biofeedback to successfully encourage runners to reduce their peak tibial acceleration by half.

All of the ten runners included in the study exhibited higher-than-normal peak tibial acceleration initially. In other words, they were stompers. Davis affixed an accelerometer to the lower leg of each runner to measure tibial acceleration as he or she ran on a treadmill. The information collected by the accelerometer was transmitted to a screen positioned in front of the runners, allowing them to see a simple graphical representation of their impact force. They were instructed to change their stride so that this measurement was reduced by half, bringing it down to within the normal range.

RELATED: Are you committing these form flaws?

All of the runners were able to do this. Importantly, they were not told how to change their strides to reduce impact. They were given the freedom to manage it in whatever way was most comfortable. Over time Davis gradually withdrew the “crutch” of biofeedback until the runners were maintaining their new, lower-impact strides own their own, by feel. Then they were sent out into the world with instructions to continue running in this modified way. After one month they returned to the lab so that Davis could determine whether they had maintained reduced impact. They had.

It is not known why there is such extreme variation in impact forces between individual runners, but there is, and those who, for whatever reason, land especially hard tend to be highly injury prone. Another running biomechanics expert who works with accelerometers, Stephen McGregor at Eastern Michigan University, told me of a case study involving a member of the Eastern Michigan cross country team. This runner was extremely gifted but constantly injured. When McGregor strapped an accelerometer to him, he found out why. The runner’s vertical accelerations (another way of measuring impact force) were off the charts—the highest of any runner McGregor tested. Neither the runner himself nor his coach had had any idea that he landed much harder than all his teammates.

When I learned of this case I got to thinking. “I am highly injury prone. Perhaps I’m a stomper,” I thought. And when I learned about Davis’s work, I got to thinking even more. Perhaps there was something I could do about it. In a phone interview, Davis told me she believed there was a do-it-yourself version of her biofeedback-based method of reducing impact forces that might work just as well: simply listen to the sound of your footstrikes and try to run a lot quieter.

RELATED: Does an increased stride rate equal educed injuries?

I did this for about three weeks. While I found it easy initially to make my footstrikes quieter, I was also quickly able to associate the softer sound of my shoe making contact with pavement (or a treadmill belt, which works even better) with particular kinesthetic sensations that then became my primary cues that I was successfully maintaining my softer stride. Specifically, I felt that I was squatting into my stride a bit more than usual, which produced a noticeable increase in tension in my lower quadriceps and a more active use of my glutes to propel forward motion. More generally and abstractly, I felt as though I was now scooting versus bounding (not that I felt I bounded before, but in contrast to my modified scooting stride that’s how my old stride now feels when I revert to it).

Circumstances also gave me an immediate way to test the likely effect of this change on my injury risk. At the time I made the change I was dealing with a half-healed Achilles tendon injury that restricted both how far and how fast I could run. If I pushed either my distance or speed limit too far, the affected area would either become painful during the run, feel sore the next day or both. Over that 3-weel stretch I didn’t made any attempt to run faster or farther than I was doing before, but since changing my stride I didn’t felt any pain in my Achilles during running and the level of all-day soreness steadily diminished.

It wasn’t all good news. I’m pretty sure my new stride was less efficient. It felt a little harder to run at my accustomed paces. This was only to be expected. Research by Stephen McGregor and other running biomechanics experts strongly suggests that runners automatically and unconsciously develop the stride that is most efficient for them, and that any conscious attempt to modify it will reduce efficiency, at least in the short term. This is the reason it’s important that, in her gait retraining methodology, Davis uses biofeedback to allow runners to find their own way to modify a certain stride characteristic instead of telling them to make isolated and overt changes such as landing on the balls of their feet instead of the heels. While even the biofeedback method is likely to reduce efficiency in most cases, forcing runners to consciously emulate a certain ideal form would certainly reduce efficiency even more.

Overall, though, I think my quads and glutes just needed a little more time to adapt to working more than they had to with my previous stride and my neuromuscular system needed time to practice and refine it. In due time it will probably be just as efficient as my old stride, and I may even have a chance to become fitter than in the past because I won’t break down as often. And I should say that, while I use the phrases “new stride” and “old stride”, it’s not like the change I’ve made is great enough to really justify them. The change feels drastic on the inside but an outside observer would probably have a hard time distinguishing the two.

As in the case of that Eastern Michigan harrier, the invisibility of the stride characteristics that predispose some runners to injury also makes it impossible to determine prospectively who’s in need of gait retraining. The only sure indication is retrospective: you get injured a lot.

How about you, are you a stomper?

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Are You A Stomper? appeared first on Competitor.com.

Piece these solutions together to overcome your own chronic injury issues. 

In March 2006 I finished a marathon for the first time in four years. The long hiatus was due to a maddening series of overuse injuries that included a recurring case of hip flexor tendonitis, calf strains and Achilles tendinosis, and topping them all, a three-year battle with patellofemoral pain syndrome (a.k.a. runner’s knee). During most of the four years between marathons I doubted I would ever again be able to train at a high level in this discipline, and indeed I “quit” running in despair at least half a dozen times.

What got me over the hump? It was not a single, all-encompassing cure. Instead, I simply tried everything and found that although most measures were dead ends, each of five distinct measures helped a little. When I finally got to the point where I was implementing all of them together (having discarded the various dead ends), I was once again able to run as much and as hard as I wanted to.

Since injuries affect most runners, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the four pieces of the injury-beating puzzle I put together, in hopes that this information will enable you to avoid and overcome your own breakdowns.

The post Solving The Injury-Prevention Puzzle appeared first on Competitor.com.

Follow these guidelines to quickly get yourself back up to speed.

Within the first 24 hours after racing, your highest priorities in terms of recovery are initiating muscle repair, restocking muscle glycogen stores, and rehydrating. Call it phase one of post-race recovery. But what happens after the first 24 hours? Why, phase two of post-race recovery, of course, where the emphasis is on the return to training.

How quickly you return to normal training depends on the length of the race you’ve just completed, your fitness level, and when you plan to race next. If the race you’ve just completed is the last one in your current training cycle, you should feel no rush to return to normal training.  In fact, you’ll be better served in the long run if you allow your body and mind to rejuvenate through a brief period of inactivity followed by a period of informal, just-for-kicks workouts, perhaps featuring some alternative modes of exercise. That said, here are some general guidelines to consider when planning your return to training:

• * After shorter races (up to 10K): You can do your next hard run within as few as three days, if you’re a high-mileage runner. Otherwise, wait about five days.
• * After a 10-miler or half-marathon: Fitter runners can go long or fast again after four or five days. More casual runners should wait at least a full week.
• * After a marathon: All runners wishing to maintain a high level of fitness should do little or no running for four to seven days, followed by a week of only low-intensity running. Then you can return to your normal regimen.

Cross-training is a great way to maintain fitness without slowing the recovery process in the first few days after a longer race.  Walking, swimming, cycling, and inline skating are all good choices, as long as you keep the intensity low.

RELATED: The Importance Of Recovery After A Marathon

On the next page you’ll find three examples of training schedules for the first 10 days after a race. The first example is a schedule that is appropriate for a runner who has just completed a short (5K or 10K) race and wishes to return to training as quickly as possible to prepare for the next race. The second example is appropriate for a runner who has just completed a marathon and wishes to return to normal training quickly. The third example is appropriate for a runner who has completed a peak race that will be followed by an “off-season” recovery period. This example includes bicycling and yoga as off-season cross-training activities, but feel free to substitute whatever activities interest you the most.

Example 1—Quick recovery after a 5K or 10K

Example 2—Quick recovery after a marathon

Example 3—Off-season recovery after a marathon

****

About The Author:

Matt Fitzgerald is the author of Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen & The Greatest Race Ever Run (VeloPress 2011) and a Coach and Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports. Find out more at mattfizgerald.org.

The post Returning To Training After A Big Race appeared first on Competitor.com.